


Smoke and Dishes

by Idonquixote



Series: Downstairs Accidents [1]
Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Bard is concerned, Character Study, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Campania, hints of PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-13
Updated: 2015-04-13
Packaged: 2018-03-22 15:36:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3734188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Idonquixote/pseuds/Idonquixote
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Sebastian speaks, blood comes out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Smoke and Dishes

**Author's Note:**

> This pairing has been speaking to me lately. So I decided to do something with it.

Eyes darting between flicks of smoke, Bard tries not to leave the realm of the living. Not to fall asleep, that is. He yawns, the cigarette falling from the corner of his mouth. The hours of the night are dwindling and he is more than ready to hit the hay. In the servant’s hall, only he remains, doing one last round on a tool inspection. Always better to be safe than sorry, is his way.

Instead of discarding the burnt cigarette, he shoves it under the table with his foot- let Sebastian yell about it in the morning. Well, he supposes it already is morning. The cook yawns again.

It’s been a tiring day for them all, moreso for the staff than Sebastian and the young master, the latter ailed with a nasty fever and the former- Bard doesn’t know what, but Sebastian hasn’t been seen at all since the young master’s return. He supposes they should count their blessings that the two made it back from the HMS Campania at all.

There’s nothing more bitter than a tragedy at sea. Bard would know. Rubbing his eyes, he turns to leave when a noise, slight enough to be subtle and loud enough to be real stops him. The kitchen.

Yanking a dirty pan from the table, he rushes, or rather, stomps, his way over to the kitchen. He raises the weapon to strike and immediately relents with a sigh. “Oy, what are you doing here, Sebastian?”

Sebastian stares back, tailcoat ruffled, gloved hands still perched on a drying dish, and from the looks of it, he had been down for quite a while finishing up the dishes. Bard’s miffed that Sebastian doesn’t trust them with it, but that is the butler’s way.

“Hey, did you hear me?”

When Sebastian speaks, blood comes out.

Bard looks on, gaping, struggling to keep his hold on the pan. Clear crimson sputters down the butler’s chin, dribbling onto his once-white collar. The pan falls.

Those hands slide off the dish and Sebastian drops on the tiled floor, splayed in a way that can only be accidental. And for a moment, Bard does not see Sebastian. He sees the blood and only the blood. They’re back on the battlefield and his general is yelling. The afternoon sun beats at his pounding head and a boy named James is dying in his arms, bleeding from the mouth, a wretched hole in his form.

Bard trembles and shakes, rouses himself out of the stupor.

“Sebastian!”

He might touch the butler too roughly. Because Sebastian recoils with a strangled groan, dragging himself to his knees and pulling away from Bard. His back presses against the cabinets, arms wrapped around his torso, and that look tells Bard _stay away._

For some reason, it kills him. Not literally.

Bard doesn’t know why but it disturbs him. How many times has he run away from Sebastian’s tantrums? And when has Sebastian ever run away from his explosions? Now, only because of that touch.

Sebastian, pristine, proper, perfect- he looks nothing like the wounded animal backing away from Bard, as if afraid _Bard_ will hurt him. Bard’s wanted to punch him many times, but never like this, not to see him this bad off- and

Hell with it. Bard could never hurt him. Could never want to.

“Hey, hey, Sebastian, it’s me.”

He sees James gasp to breathe. The guns load. A bullet coming at him. No, Bard shakes the images away. He kneels by Sebastian, prying the butler’s arms away. He pales.

A steady seepage of blood is darkening the chest, pooling at the waistcoat and- Bard slips off the tailcoat- coloring the white of his shirt.

“Shit,” he says.

The wound is huge, spreading to Sebastian’s back, too big to be from a bullet. It looks like something a sword could do, if Bard exaggerates, a huge sword that is. Regardless, it’s no accident and for a moment, he wants nothing more than to find Sebastian’s attacker and slice him the same way.

“Bard,” Sebastian mumbles, holding down a cough, “don’t tell the young master.”

“Well, I don’t see how you’ll hide this from him,” Bard snaps, then regrets it because Sebastian flinches in pain once more.

“Here, come on,” Bard adds, hoisting the butler up, throwing one arm over his own neck a bit sharply, and then Sebastian is in his grip- like James and Roderick and- no, that’s in the past.

Sebastian’s wound seems to worsen as they move, the blood trailing onto Bard’s pants and somehow clogging up his nostrils. He remembers the way Sebastian had looked that day, staring down at Bard, the only clean thing in the midst of all that carnage, an offer on his lips and an arrogant glint in his eyes. But that glint had been hope for Bard- he took the offer, didn’t he?

Maybe that’s why this is so unsettling. Everything he knows has fallen, everything but Phantomhive manor, and Sebastian is no different. Sebastian does not fall. Sebastian cannot fall.

Until he does.

Bard places Sebastian on his own bed, Finnian snoring soundly on the other. He sloppily undoes the butler’s tie and cuts open the bloodied shirt. He’s confident that Sebastian has more. There _are_ bandages underneath, soaked and loose, and too many to count.

“What happened?” he asks at last, fumbling to remove the bandages and apply his own version of a tourniquet.

“I failed,” is all Sebastian says.

And again, for some reason, that kills Bard, the disappointment and self-loathing in that voice. Because if Sebastian is imperfect, then what is Bard? But that’s a lie, and the ex-soldier knows.

He has enough medical knowledge to know how to handle this at its minimum. Bard tries to disinfect the wound with a spare bottle of alcohol (and uses nearly the whole bottle) before he winds new gauze about Sebastian’s body.

“You’re going to have turn over, come on, hold me. There we go.”

Sebastian gives no indication of pain as Bard ties the gauze, though he knows it must hurt like hell. The truth is, if Sebastian is imperfect, it means Sebastian can suffer. And the truth is, Bard can’t stand to see Sebastian suffer.

Almost unconsciously, too roughly once again, he holds Sebastian to him, hands lightly tracing the new gauze. The butler does nothing to resist, too tired, in too much pain perhaps. Bard knows this will do nothing for either of them, but somehow, he feels that he can save Sebastian from any other blow this way.

The bed is red with blood and Sebastian’s articles lie strewn and ripped about it, rendered as torn as their owner. And to Bard’s shock, Sebastian’s limp arms come around him again. The butler hugs him back.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments/kudos are always welcome.


End file.
